Amponsah-Mensah, K;
Hudson, MA;
Cunningham, A;
Wood, JLN;
Ntiamoa-Baidu, Y;
(2024)
Demography of the Gambian Epauletted Fruit Bat
(Epomophorus gambianus) in Ghana.
Journal of Mammalogy
, Article gyae096. 10.1093/jmammal/gyae096.
(In press).
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Abstract
We provide the first estimates of survival and reproductive rates for a population of the Gambian Epauletted Fruit Bat Epomophorus gambianus in Ghana. We focused on a large colony of ca. 5,000 bats over 3 years to estimate population parameters including population size, birth rates, survival, and sex ratios for this species. Reproduction chronology was confirmed as seasonal bimodal polyestry, with births occurring in March/April and August/September each year. The estimated birth rate was 0.89 (95% CI = 0.85 to 0.92) per reproductive season. The overall sex ratio (female to male ratio) of the study population was male-dominated (0.69, 95% CI = 0.64 to 0.75), but female-biased for adults (62% female, χ21 = 42, P < 0.0001), and showed temporal and age-specific variations. By radiotracking 60 bats for 10 months, we obtained the first estimates of minimum monthly survival for this species as 0.81 (95% CI = 0.74 to 0.86), but this could be an underestimate due to possible undetected emigration of tagged bats.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Demography of the Gambian Epauletted Fruit Bat (Epomophorus gambianus) in Ghana |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1093/jmammal/gyae096 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1093/jmammal/gyae096 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Society of Mammalogists. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Keywords: | Birth rates, capture–mark–recapture, fruit bat, radiotelemetry, reproductive chronology, sex ratio, survival |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences > Genetics, Evolution and Environment |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10194653 |
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